As a beginner developer working on pet projects at home, it’s easy to argue that once code goes through the compiler, it’s all the same. Right? The flaw in this argument is that it assumes that all software developers do is write new code. The reality is that we actually spend much more time reading and modifying existing code than writing new code.

Jeff Atwood once famously proclaimed “we are typists first, programmers second”. While I think software development is a little more complicated than that, this quote brings up an important point: efficiency in software development hinges on the tooling we choose. For the longest time I used Bash as my UNIX shell. It got the job done. I would occasionally feel frustrated by a repetitive command or a missing feature, but there was usually an alias or script I could apply like a bandaid to minimize the pain enough to keep going. I even switched to iTerm several years back to improve my terminal emulator GUI. I worked with Bash for long enough that I managed to amass a pretty fancy .bash_profile config. If you’re curious about my config, you can check it out for yourself.

My memory is terrible. It always has been. When left to my own devices, I forget names, addresses, appointments, book titles and pretty much everything in between. As such, I’m always looking for a better way to keep my thoughts organized. I’ve tried a variety of organizational methods to combat this problem. As a student, I used to keep a daily agenda where I would religiously write down my assignments and due dates. This kept me well-organized, but I always felt limited by the finite amount of space the planner gave me for each day. The pre-designed boxes left no room for notes, thoughts or events. There was no way for me to easily remember the title of the obscure film I had heard about that day, or take notes on the interesting computer science concept I had just stumbled across.

Here’s a neat little hack. Have you ever needed a place to write something down, only to realize you don’t have a piece of paper around? Have you ever fumbled to open your native text editor, only to forget the great idea or the telephone number you just had in your head in the process? This hack will create a simple text editor in your browser that you can bookmark and pop open whenever you need. Set it on your bookmarks toolbar and you’ll find yourself using it all the time.